Released in New York by 451 Research, it shows that while contemporary CMOs are starting to believe that digital marketing will address the shifting expectations of customers, most marketing organisations lack the technical skills to deploy the highly complex data-driven customer profiling and personalisation that vendors in this marketplace are offering.
Furthermore, very few organisations have the overarching information architecture required to support the customer data requirements to meet this vision. They lack both the expertise and process maturity.
Its research analysts are urging caution, particularly for those enterprises considering large-scale adoption. With vendors betting large sums through acquisitions and VCs providing considerable startup funding, there is a race to promote products in this sector. There are indications that the messaging is having some effect, with potential customers generally agreeing that digital marketing could have a positive effect on their operations, but that is not reflected in a parallel upswing in spending.
"An all-powerful CMO, someone who ultimately overpowers the CIO with a greater spending power, seems far from reality. In fact, there seems to be little to no hard evidence to support that somewhat wild prediction," says Senior Analyst, Matt Mullen. "A great deal of cash has been bet in the form of vendor acquisition and startup funding; while there are indications that the messaging is having some effect across the market, that is not yet delivering a parallel upswing in spending."
Research Director, Alan Pelz-Sharpe and Mullen take an in-depth look into the current state of the Digital Marketing sector and offer up some key findings:
2. Integration with sales and customer service operations is rare in larger organisations (where digital marketing adoption rates are consistently higher), and there is typically a poor overall customer experience and lack of a unified strategy regarding customer service and sales. This remains one of the single biggest challenges facing organisations today.
3. Vendors of newer digital marketing technologies based on social media and advanced analytics should lower expectations based on buying patterns in 2014. Most buyers are still focusing most of their digital marketing efforts on email campaign management.For more information, go to The CMO vs. the CIO - who will win the battle for IT?
